Careful antemortem examination and interpretation of findings, assisted by good clinical records, do much to throw light on the nature of vertical fissure in cattle. During an eight month period of investigation, 13 (3.2%) lame cows with vertical fissure out of 52 Holstein cows with different claw fissures were selected for clinical and gross pathological purposes in a commercial dairy farm wit...

Yearly production and reproduction data on dairy farms in The Netherlands were obtained to determine whether management information systems significantly improved herd performance variables (management information systems (MIS) effects). The analysis included 357 adopters of a management information system and 357 herds were used as controls. The data comprised years 1987 through 1996, and incl...

The multitrait genetic evaluation system for type traits was modified to estimate adjustments for heterogeneous variance (HV) simultaneously with estimated breeding values (EBV) for final score and 14 linear traits. Each variance within herd, year, and parity was regressed toward a predicted variance, which was determined by fitting a model with fixed effects of the mean final score for herd, s...

This study aimed (1) at determining the levels of the fungal toxin sterigmatocystin (STC) in the feed and urine of cattle and (2) at evaluating the effects of supplementing the feed with a mycotoxin adsorbent (MA) on STC concentrations in urine. Two herds of female Japanese Black cattle were used in this study. The cattle in each herd were fed a standard ration containing rice straw from differ...

Records of the first three lactations of cows were obtained from the file of the Dairy Herd Testing Association in Hokkaido. The data were divided into 10 files containing approximately 24,000 cows each. The derivative-free REML method was used to estimate variances with a repeatability model. The model contained herd-year, calving month, and the linear and quadratic effects of age at calving a...

In order to contribute to the genetic breeding programs of buffaloes, this study aimed to determine the influence of environmental effects on the stayability (ST) of dairy female Murrah buffalo in the herd. Data from 1016 buffaloes were used. ST was defined as the ability of the female to remain in the herd for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 years after the first calving. Environmental effects were studied...

Ignoring the indirect effects of vaccination has led to two types of inaccuracies in cholera vaccine policy analysis in endemic settings. First, when herd protection is ignored, the social benefits and cost-effectiveness of vaccination programs are underestimated, such that the programs are rarely considered to be a wise use of scarce public health resources. Once vaccine herd protection is inc...

We evaluated genetic and environmental factors affecting age at first farrowing of sows in the Brazilian southeast. For this purpose, 466 observations regarding the age at first farrowing were made for Dalland-C40© animals belonging to two herds. The effects of the environmental factors on this trait were assessed by means of a model that included, as random effects, the influence of the sow's ...